Looking to go out of this world, travel back in time or maybe into the future?

The new issue of the Authors' Cave Exclusive Science Fiction eZine is full of authors who will take you wherever you want to go!

Look inside for chapter excerpts, book trailers, audio clips and author videos! Maybe you'll find your next favorite adventure!





Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful moms out there!

-Ginger

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New Author Ezines!

We've been quite busy in the Cave revamping things! We have formed the Authors' Cave Exclusive for our premium members where we collaborate in all things publishing: marketing, cover designs, hook writing, book trailers, author videos and story telling. We aim to bring you more of what you want! Great stories!

Let us know what you think!

-Ginger

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Yay! Super Excited! Dark Days 5!

So, I just have to share how excited I am because last night was one of those wonderful nights in a writer's life when the idea juice is flowing like the Nile. When ideas pop into your head so fast, you can hardly write them down and keep up.

My main resolution this year is to finish the entire series of Dark Days. Last night, the story line came to me... I'm thinking spies... South American explorers and Chileansoh and who is the stranger that Ben will meet in the woods?

Time to get 'er done!

Ginger

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New Year - New Authors' Cave!

Year of Change – BACK TO THE ROOTS

We hope everyone’s New Year is starting off fantastic—maybe like March McCarron’s! Fantastic results with ENT and Book Bub! It is with this New Year, that we must now make some changes to BRD and Authors’ Cave 1) because of time constraints, and most importantly 2) to get us back to our ROOTS!

How do we all sell more books?

What are the most effective marketing avenues?

What is so ridiculous is that for nearly 2 years as I have managed the group, I have hardly marketed my own books at all! I want to get back to that—ROOTS! …and help you guys by sharing what works for me, and in return, learn what has worked for you.

As many of you in the group know, I have returned to a full time job. I am happy to be back at work, but unfortunately, there are not enough hours in the day to maintain the stuff required by the Authors’ Cave site and also the social interaction at BRD, as well as feed my family, take care of the house and the garden, oh and write on my own books…I want to get back to that—ROOTS! Additionally, the group is now being managed by only 2 of us—Chameleon and I.

So… ROOTS

Our goal has always been to create a collaborative community in the hopes that marketing as a group effort versus individually would generate more book sales for all of us. Since the launch in July, we have put forth several free venues for collaboration opportunities in which you could generate additional sales and reviews through higher visibility, including greater exposure through our eZine. Despite the free factor, only a fraction of the membership has taken advantage of these venues.

In light of these things... 

we are restructuring Authors' Cave and streamlining our purpose

What we have found is that it has been Premium Members who typically participate and are open to our ideas and we believe we can do more with a smaller focused group. We have created the Authors’ Cave Exclusive which will be made up of the 36 Premium Members we currently have. The group will be capped at 50 for now, so we have 14 positions open to fill.

With these 50 authors, we plan to collaborate, hold workshops, share experiences in marketing, and co-market for each other. The group is only for people who want to actively participate, so if you are not willing to work together, please do not sign up. The eZine will be revamped to feature a profile page for each member of the Authors’ Cave. Members are encouraged to write columns, share poetry, chapter excerpts, videos, trailers, etc on their page. The eZine can be used as a group marketing piece and assist in co-marketing, without much effort.

Finally…Workshops! 

We want to focus our time in areas that have been a complaint of members for a long time. We will go step by step in helping each premium member build the perfect, effective Author's Toolkit. Beginning March 1st we'll be covering the following topics, in-depth, as a group and individually.

• Plot: holes, unresolved issues, characters, world, etc.
• Writing: pace, info dumps, descriptive text, how to show and not tell
• Presentation: cover, how to easily make a digital table of contents, how to properly format your ebook
• Media: video trailers and media presentations – easier than you think! You'll end up with a professional media presentation (a $150.00 value) you'll be able to post around that people will enjoy reading and looking at!
• Marketing: effective marketing tools and strategies that will get you noticed!

How will this affect BRD?

We will still run the BRD group and have the BRD review process but will be making some changes to that as well, including the following:

Book Review Depot Process

• Books on the list 1 year or more will be removed immediately (after Mar 30, 2015, books on the list over 9 months will be removed).
• A book can only be posted to the list 2 times in a 1-year period.
• It will now take 7 reviews to earn a spot on the list to get 10 reviews in return.
• The genre of the month is no longer in play for double review credits, it's too hard to track and we need to balance the post to review ratio. 

We will be removing some of the genre categories that are not read as much and combine those into one “Miscellaneous” category. These include Non-fiction, and Children’s for now. There are a couple other categories that may be combined at a later date. We think it's only fair that authors understand the limited interest we've been able to generate for these before they do their reviews.

We will still participate in the ever-fun conversations because those are great entertainment!

Book Club

Authors’ Cave will no longer manage the book club. Participation simply wasn't enough for the amount of time it took to organize.

Authors’ Cave Services

Chameleon and I are going to focus on more of the services for the marketing side of the selling books going forward meaning we will not be doing express reviews, the Grind (editing and redlining). We will be offering book covers, book trailers, media kits and formatting.

Check out our new website! Authors' Cave

We wish you all the best for the new year and invite you to join our new collaboration efforts at Authors’ Cave Exclusive!

-Ginger and Chameleon

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January Edition Authors' Cave eZine

Welcome to the January edition of the Authors' Cave eZine! 
How do you feel about 3 star reviews? See what your peers thought...





-Ginger

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Authors' Cave Book Award Winners

Congratulations!!!

Sonia De Leon 

Grand Prize Winner 

of the 

Authors' Cave First Annual Book Awards 

for her novel

 The Blue Amaryllis!

We are happy to announce Sonia and The Blue Amaryllis as the Grand Prize winner of the  

2014 Authors' Cave Book Awards Contest.

The Blue Amaryllis took first overall in the judging categories and member voting! 

The categories included:

Cover

Blurb

The presence of a Table of Contents

Proper Formatting

Proper proofreading and editing

Plot

Character Development

Layout

Ease of Reading/Flow of the story

We also extend our congratulations 

to the winners in each genre!

Lorrie Farrelly - Timelapse (Mystery Suspence / Time Travel)

Click here to read description or purchase.

K T Bowes - Blaming the Child (Romance)

Click here to read description or purchase.

March McCarron - Division of the Marked (Fantasy / Mythical)

Click here to read description or purchase.

        

Demelza Carlton - See You in Hell (Urban Contemporary)

Click here to read description or purchase.

Thank you to all of those of you who entered! There were a lot of fantastic books submitted and the competition was fierce!

-Ginger

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Are you a serious author or are you one of those million other guys?

Time to take a good look in the mirror folks!

That's right - a change is coming! A New Year is just around the corner. I want you to ask yourself if you are taking your writing career seriously. Are you doing everything you can do to become a best seller? Or, are you wandering around like a beggar, waving your book link in the air to every group you can find in social media, hoping for some reason that your book link stands out from the other million book links the readers have already seen that day? THIS DOESN'T WORK. YOU KNOW IT DOESN'T WORK. 

Yet, some of you insist on sticking with that approach. Guys, book links are not interesting to people. They are a dime a dozen.

You have to create a plan to make yourself stand out! Did you really think because you published your masterpiece to Amazon that suddenly it was going to fly off the shelf like the next hottest thing to an iPhone?

NO!

It takes planning and work...and oh, being creative!

Why post a book link when you can post a book trailer video? Why only have print when you can also have audio? People are busy these days. Make it easy for them to like you!

When you submit your book to bloggers and readers, are you sending them a link or simple Word doc? Why not jazz things up with a flip style media kit that includes video, audio and all of the links on how to find you...and your books? All of your books.

Join an authors' book club AND PARTICIPATE! This is a fantastic way to gain sales and reviews, as well as honest, constructive criticism on how you can become a better and more polished writer. Click here to join a great one at Authors' Cave! Readers are always welcome too! Honest Collaboration is a fantastic tool to have in your tool box!

If you want to become a best seller, you have to get serious! It's time. Book links will never turn you into an Anne Rice (my favorite) or a Stephen King.

Here are samples of the items above. Hopefully, they will inspire you.

Audio Book - Listen to a sample.

Audio book are a great way to gain an audience because the crowd you are competing in is much smaller. Lots of people out there love to read but just don't have the time. They do have to sit in traffic though on their way to work, on their way to pick up their children from school, and they want audio books!

Book Trailer

Please note: The trailer for Tressie: A Spirit Unleashed is still a work in progress so the images and video have not yet been finalized or purchased which is why you see the Shutterstock image.

Book trailers stand out way more than a book link...and they are super fun to create! Bring your story to life. Give some personality to a character and engage a new reader!

Media Kit

Readers want to know something about you before they decide if you are going to be their next favorite author. Give them more! Tell them something about yourself and show them that you care about your own books enough to give them more than a book link!

It's time to get serious! What are you going to do for yourself? If you need help, Authors' Cave is here for you. Click here to check out our services for authors! 

Hopefully, I have made you think!

-Ginger

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